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Chapter 3 - Sunken (CF)
Searing pain flowed through Tubba as he felt himself teleport through space. A slight stab of pain was normal for teleportation - you were disassembling every part of your body, and reassembling it elsewhere. But the pain to the extent he was feeling was not normal. A millisecond later, he felt himself land, belly down, arms outstretched, with a heavy thud in ice-cold water, informing Tubba that something had gone horribly wrong. As he resurfaced briefly, he heard a resounding crack of thunder, felt the lashing rain buffett his skin, and saw a flash of lightning through his closed eyelids. He plunged underneath the surface, his heavy weight forcing him down, feeling himself roll over and over, being thrown around by the strong current of the water, his red arms thrashing uselessly in the torrent. Thrashing to get his head above the water, Tubba could not tell what was up and what was down, for the rain and water was completely disorienting him. A brief second clawing for air was followed by salty water racing into his mouth, sending him tumbling backwards through the ocean. Waving his tail in an attempt to steady himself only caused jolts of hot, white pain to race up his spine. Pain was now not the only feeling Tubba was having encompass every part of his being. Fear swarmed him, gnawing at him, settling on an inescapable conclusion. With the base of the tail was pulsing in agony, and the inability to feel it beyond the vertebrae just below the shell, Tubba knew that there was a high chance that, not only had he failed to reach his destination - Rogueport square - he had also sliced his tail off in a failed effort. While an amputation of a limb was usually high on Tubba's priority list, he elected to shove to the back of his mind. What was, however, was his desperate attempt to gain enough traction in the water to resurface again. It was to no avail. Tubba was a bad swimmer as is, but without his tail, he was next to hopeless. Gasps of air were followed by his head being sucked down underneath the water. Claps of thunder and flashes of lightning epitomized his tormented state of mind. The panic he was feeling shifted to a higher gear, as he flailed his extremities in a desperate effort to recover himself. What am I supposed to do? The thought impressed itself in Tubba's mind as he continued fighting the strong water currents, pushing out with his arms, trying to pull himself to the surface. Another eddy of the water forced him downward, away from air longer than he had been before. A dull, aching pain crept up Tubba's throat and stung his chest as he tumbled through the blackness of the water. The pain was telltale, the pain one felt when they held their breath for too long. Time was running out of the hourglass of Tubba's life. Seconds later, the agony in Tubba's chest was now not unlike a blunt knife stabbing his lungs, and his will fading, Tubba gave in to his desires. Opening his mouth as he flew through the ocean that could be his grave, the briny water entered his mouth once again, doing nothing to ease the burning sensation, rather just exacerbating the issue. Feeling his head spin as he desperately tried to keep consciousness, Tubba was overtaken by an even more sickening moment of fear. I'm coming, Dad. ''Tubba thought of his father, the late Tubba Blubba Sr.. The orange-haired, blue-scaled smaller Clubba had been an exceptional King to his Kingdom, but more importantly, a father without compare to his sons. Tubba's life was flashing before his eyes; from his first memories of playing with his father on the dusty sands of Gusty Gulch with his brother, to learning in school and sparring with Clubbar, to Bubba's bloodied corpse, to the scene in the volcano, with Ludwig, Clubbar, Mazette and Clubbette's deceitful faces looming high above him. I'm coming, Clubbar. I hope, wherever you are, you exist peacefully. What you did in the volcano pales in comparison to what you taught me, an eternal advisor, a friend.'' Tubba allowed his thoughts to drift to his father's, and later his brother's, aged Commander. A strange peace was overcoming him. The screaming pain in his chest was still there, but it felt disconnected from him, as if it was an old scar. He could no longer feel much of his body - he could vaguely feel his arms, but mainly all he could feel was his core, the place where most of his body heat was concentrated. Clubbar's voice blared in his mind: You will be King, Tubba. If you're half the King your father is, you'll go down in history. You're a smaller Clubba, Tubba. Against an enemy bigger than you, dodge my blows! Don't take them. Tubba, when you jumped off the Gusty Gulch cliff... why didn't you use your shell as a floatation device? The magic of the shell makes it less dense than water. Snapping out of his thoughts abruptly, Tubba realized exactly what that memory implied. It was an older memory, dating back to his late teens. Not bothering to dwell on it, Tubba forced his dull and faint right hand fingers to work, his heart pounding desperately, his head whirling rapidly and his chest bellowing at him to lose consciousness. He could barely feel his fingers groping across his scales, reaching a place just below his left armpit. Feeling the rim of the shell distantly, Tubba put all of his effort into pushing with his right hand. Elation raced through his body as he felt his shell detach from his back. Grasping the rim of the shell with his right hand, he felt the shell begin to rise steadily upward. Twisting his body into a more comfortable position, what he believed to be back down in the water, Tubba felt the shell break the surface of the water, and then, his own head. Shifting onto his belly, and flinging his arms over his shell, underside up, so that he was hunched over the shell, the majority of his body still dangling into the water. Opening his eyes for the first time since leaving Glitzville, ignoring the sting of the water accumulating on his face, Tubba realized that opening his eyes had next to no impact whatsoever. The pitch black of the night, interrupted briefly by forks of lightning, the spray of rain through the sky, made sight close to impossible. Feeling the shell go up and down with the waves of the ocean, Tubba knew his weight was too much for the shell to capsize on the smaller waves. Exhausted, Tubba's belly heaved as he began to spew up a puddle of seawater on the underside of his shell. Too tired to even think about it, Tubba rested his head in his vomit, and let his thoughts wander in the direction of Clubbar. The memory that had just saved his life was when he was nineteen. He had returned to Gusty Gulch, where Clubbar and Tubba had reminsced about times past. Tubba had finally lowered his barriers enough for Clubbar to hold a conversation about his original split from the Clubba Kingdom. As he lay, face down in the bobbing shell, Tubba let his thoughts wander. I am alone. There is no one by my side. I am in the middle of an ocean between four Kingdoms that want me arrested. Gonzales and Blizzerd were taken away six years ago. Aaron and Shazam were lost a couple years ago. I haven't seen Mud for sixteen years. ''Letting his head rise, Tubba searched desperately for a gap in the tempest of the night sky. When he found one, he saw a single, pale white star, sparkling brightly against all the chaos around it. Determination hardened in his gut. He would rage his battle and refuse to be caught, and stand alone, just like that little star. The challenge of being alone in a world after him may be difficult, but he refused to wink out, analogous to that sole star, contrasting the blackness of the clouds and the night. ''Thank you, Clubbar. That was the last thought Tubba had as he felt consciousness slip away, drifting aimlessly at sea.